ghost of miles

Let the better times roll! (Well, not for your beloved Bosox... but otherwise... )

Very long post from Doug Ramsey's blog about the concert.

Anybody mention Irene Kral's 1963 BETTER THAN ANYTHING, with Junior Mance on piano, Bob Cranshaw on bass, and Mickey Roker on drums?

SOAW, if you dig the Teri T. that Larry recommends--and it's indeed a fine record--seek out her two larger-ensemble records from the early 1960s, SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT and OPEN HIGHWAY. Not as strong as DEVIL, but I liked her singing so much that I picked up the other dates as well. Back to small-group dates: Betty Roche's Bethlehem and two Prestige dates Peggy Lee's late-1940s sides with Dave Barbour (available elsewhere besides the Mosaic?) Anita O'Day, ANITA SINGS THE MOST Sarah Vaughan, LIVE IN JAPAN ...I'll try to post others as I think of them.

"Norman Granz's Jazz Scene" is now archived.

Thanks for the recs. I started THE DROWNING POOL this afternoon; it's an earlier Archer, I take it (1950?) and seems a bit under the spell of Marlowe/Chandler at times, but I'm still really enjoying it.

Sounds like a great show, birdmonk! Are you Mr. Feldman, by any chance? I notice he recently relocated from Denver... which matches your Feb. '04 origin. Either way, keep us posted--I'll tune in for sure.

E-mail sent re: JJ at Cafe Bohemia and Julie London.

Is this a new book? I thought I had all of Hammett. (Includng a book of comic strips he wrote.) Yes--I have that SECRET AGENT X-9 book as well. LOST STORIES came out just last year; I stumbled across it at our local Borders last week. It's not "complete," as far as I can tell; it doesn't contain the very last Continental Op story, "Death and Company" (which I've been searching for for some time), or several early 1930s stories I still can't find ("On the Way," "Albert Pastor at Home," and "His Brother's Keeper"). It does have "Night Shade" and "This Little Pig," plus a # of 1920s stories I've never read, so I bought it. The book is rather padded with biographical commentary.

Ghost, you and I appear to have similar reading interests. I've been reading a ton of Hammet, Raymond Chandler etc this summer. I can hardly get enough of it! Lately, I've been reading Ross MacDonald (the Lew Archer stuff). I just finished the Galton Case. Have you read Paul Elie's biography of Merton, Dorothy Day, Walker Percy, and Flannery O'Connor? Really enjoyable and interesting to see the intersections among those great lives. No, I haven't, but that sounds really good--I'll take a look for it when I go down to Caveat Emptor today, coincidentally enough to look for some Ross MacDonald! This a.m. I was reading Lorrie Moore's review of a new Eudora Welty bio in the new NY Review of Books... she mentioned Welty's liking for MacDonald (real name Ken Millar), which got me interested in reading him again. I have two paperbacks, THE DROWNING POOL and FIND A VICTIM--neither of which I've read yet--but the other day I'd come across a quote from a 1953 novel of MacDonald's... so I'm going to go downtown and see if I can find it. In the meantime, Moore's review drove me to start reading Welty's THE OPTIMIST'S DAUGHTER--more of a novella than a novel, so I think I might be able to get through all of it today.

Man, I've been a bit of a drunk with this sale--just snagged the Dave Douglas CD/DVD KEYSTONE and the 6-CD Billie Holiday master takes on Verve set, for a grand total of 36 bucks. No more!

Wang notches #17, the Yanks' magic # is 13, and with the Tigers' loss tonight, NY is right on their heels for homefield advantage in the playoffs. Ryan Howard went 2-2 with four walks--two of 'em intentional. Anybody see the remarks from Maris' family, saying Howard should get the HR record if he surpasses 61?

Ditto. This set, like the "Birks Works" discussed elsewhere comes from what is IMHO a sort of golden age of reissues at what used to be PolyGram, in the mid-90s and under Richard Seidel. They did some excellent reissues, and more importantly, they *stuffed* CDs, like the 2 LPs in 1 CD (Gloomy Sunday/How to succeed...), 3 LPs in 2 CDs (like a couple of Ben Webster sets) or even 4 LPs in 2 CDs (the Lee Konitz/Jimmy Giuffre set). F A golden age indeed. Michael Lang, Ben Young, and Peter Pullman were some of the other folks involved w/the Polygram reissue program at the time. Re: The Jazz Scene, the bonus material on disc 2 is really good as well. I bought this set in late 1994, shortly after it came out, when I was in the first throes of my love affair with jazz, and TJS served as my introduction to Ralph Burns, George Handy, and Machito. "Norman Granz's Jazz Scene" up for broadcast in about five minutes on WNIN-Evansville, and again in about an hour and five minutes on WFIU.

Another mention of the NYC benefit concert:

Dashiell Hammett, LOST STORIES. Also rereading parts of Michael Mott's THE SEVEN MOUNTAINS OF THOMAS MERTON.

This week on Night Lights it’s “Norman Granz’s Jazz Scene.” Jazz impresario Norman Granz, who started the popular Jazz at the Philharmonic concert tour series in the 1940s as well as the record label that came to be known as Verve, also produced a lavish package of jazz recordings that was somewhat akin to an early box-set: The Jazz Scene, a folio packet of six 78 records with an accompanying set of photographs of some of the top jazz artists of the day and liner notes for each musical selection. In his introductory note Granz wrote, “This is our attempt to present today’s jazz scene in terms of the visual, the written word, and the auditory,” and emphasized that he’d given the set’s musicians complete artistic freedom. Among those appearing in the collection were Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, pianist and arranger Ralph Burns, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and Latin jazz bandleader Machito. The set was issued in a limited edition of 5,000 copies and sold for a cool $25 (yes, that’s 1949 dollars). “Norman Granz’s Jazz Scene” airs Saturday, September 9 at 11 p.m. EST on WFIU and at 9 p.m. Central Time on WNIN-Evansville. It will be posted Monday afternoon in the Night Lights archives. Next week: "Jazz Goes Disney."

Thanks much for the update. I was using the AAJ page today & noticed that (unlike Jazzmatazz) it apparently has no backtracking feature... one of the great things about Jazzmatazz has been that you can go back and see what you might have missed in previous months. Hope Alan gets the JMT update section up again & running! Hell, I'd donate a few bucks for the cause; like Organissimo, it's certainly worth it.

This week on Afterglow we’ll feature music from a new and comprehensive collection of Nat King Cole’s late-1950s Capitol recordings, including Cole’s collaborations with arrangers such as Billy May, Nelson Riddle, and Gordon Jenkins, as well as two sides made with members of the Count Basie Orchestra. This was a prolific and rewarding period for Cole—in 1958 alone he produced seven albums. You can also hear some early 1960s Nat King Cole radio broadcasts on the March 17, 2006 program in the Afterglow archives and Cole’s music for the 1958 movie St. Louis Blues on this Night Lights program. In the first hour of the show we’ll also hear from Artie Shaw and Red Garland with John Coltrane, and we’ll have a set of music from the Jones (Norah, Thad, Rickie Lee, and Carmell) in addition to a set of 1960s movie themes performed by Chet Baker, Louis Armstrong, and Lee Morgan. “Stardust: Nat King Cole on Capitol, 1955-59” airs Friday, September 8 at 10:05 p.m. EST on WFIU and at 10 p.m. Central Time Saturday evening on WNIN-Evansville. Next week: "Nancy Wilson: Something Old, Something New."

Any word yet on the release date? Not that I'll be able to afford it till spring... JT, I'm featuring the 1955-59 box on Hour 2 of Afterglow this evening. I'll have more info up in a sec in the jazz radio forum.

Thanks much, Mr. A. Wanted to offer special thanks as well to David Frasier, a great reference librarian who works at IU, and author of several encyclopedic "tomes" (sorry, best word for what they are--apologies to memories of Hardbop) on sordid homicide/suicide-related topics (in John Waters' 2004 movie A DIRTY SHAME, a character is seen holding aloft a copy of David's book, SUICIDE IN THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY--also part of the trailer, no less... talk about great free/targeted advertising!). Special thanks also to Stereojack.

Just went back and bit on that Brubeck box--couldn't resist at that price.

Just nabbed the Granz Jam Sessions box for $25 total--free shipping and handling and 2/3 off.

Gilmore does allude to Coltrane's supposedly having come to see Sun Ra shortly before his death, expressing problems with a lack of inspiration. Sun Ra suggested that JC come play & record with the Arkestra, and, according to Gilmore, JC agreed and also said he'd donate some money to the group as well: Later on Gilmore says, "(Trane's) whole history could have been changed if he had done what he said he was going to do. Coming over to Sun Ra would have energised him to the point where he could have recuperated from whatever ailment he had."

Gerald Wilson moved to Detroit in 1934 and attended Cass Technical High School, a high school that's known for it's music department. Some of it's famous alumni are Betty Carter, Yusef Lateef, Milt Jackson, Kenny Burrell, Al McKibbon, Ron Carter, Donald Byrd, Howard McGee, Alice Coltrane, Bennie Maupin, the list goes on an on. Even some of the current jazz "stars", like Regina Carter, attended Cass. I can think of no other high school that has produced so many great musicians. I still hope that somebody some day writes a book about all of the great African-American music teachers at the high school level who helped produce the great jazz generations of the mid-20th century. (Think I started a thread about this a long time ago, either here or at BNBB.) Working on this John Gilmore program has reminded me of it again--he was a pupil of Captain Walter Dyett at Du Sable High. Some of Dyett's other students included Gene Ammons, Clifford Jordan, Johnny Griffin, Andrew Hill, Leroy Jenkins, Richard Davis, Pat Patrick, and Ronnie Boykins.